BJSW Advance Access originally published online on July 31, 2007
British Journal of Social Work 2008 38(8):1610-1629; doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcm069
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Collaboration Between Community Advocates and Academic Researchers: Scientific Advocacy or Political Research?
Roland Stahl is an instructor at the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research at Bryn Mawr College. He is currently completing his doctoral thesis on sanctions and client outcomes in welfare-to-work programmes. He is the author (with Corey Shdaimah) of ‘Reflections on doing phronetic social science’, in Making Political Science Matter, Brian Caterino and Sanford Schram, eds (New York: New York University Press, 2006).
Corey S. Shdaimah is Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. She holds a Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr College and law degrees from Tel Aviv University (LL.B.) and the University of Pennsylvania (LL.M.). Her areas of interest are the effects of policy on individuals and communities and the relationship between theory and practice knowledge. Her most recent publication is ‘Intersecting identities: Cause lawyers as legal professionals and social movement actors’, in Cause Lawyers and Social Movements, Austin Sarat and Stuart Scheingold, eds (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006).
Correspondence to Roland Stahl, School of Social Work, University of Applied Sciences of Central Switzerland, Werftstrasse 1, Postfach 3252, 6002 Luzern, Switzerland. E-mail: rstahl{at}brynmawr.edu
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Abstract |
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There is a growing interest on the part of community groups, academics and funders in developing collaborative research projects between researchers and community groups. The authors of this paper collaborated with a community-based advocacy group on a study that focused on home repair problems faced by low-income homeowners in Philadelphia, PA (the ‘Home Repair Study’). In this article, we provide a critical analysis of the collaborative process between social work advocates and academic social work researchers based on participatory observation and in-depth interviews with those advocates who participated directly in the planning and implementation of the Home Repair Study. Similar to accounts provided in previously published articles, our findings suggest that such collaborations will frequently encounter tensions resulting from the different roles that researchers and community-based advocates fulfil in the research field and in the political arena. However, we argue that these tensions are healthy; if managed effectively, they contribute to more comprehensive research and more effective policy advocacy.
Keywords: collaborative research, participatory action research, community advocacy, public policy